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On top of the capsule collection, Bumble will also collaborate with different brands quarterly. (Tropico Photo)
Austin’s yellowest dating app is turning heads in a whole new way with a wearable collab debuting with California-based lifestyle brand Aviator Nation.
Bumble x Aviator Nation gear and a separate capsule collection called Bumble Basics will be hosted on the app’s new website Bumble Shop. On the site, you’ll see branded T-shirts, hats, sweaters, games and baubles.
“We originally created our merchandise for the Bumble staff, brand ambassadors, and those who attended our events,” Chief brand officer Selby Drummond said in a release. “However, before we knew it, people were asking where they could purchase our items–from pens to T-shirts, and everything in between.”
The 1970s-inspired Aviator Nation collection is made up of three pieces, all with the same yellow stripe pattern: the double-zipper cowl neck Ninja pullover, drawstring Ninja sweatpants and a trucker hat with a sizable Bumble emblem.
The collaborative collection is on the pricey end: $200 for the hoodie, $150 for the sweatpants and $45 for the hat. Bumble said the collaborations will be quarterly, with the California brand cinching the first spot.
Meanwhile, the Bumble Basics collection is more robust with 12 pieces to peruse. The taped crewneck, featuring white ribbon with the tagline “make the first move” down the arms, and varsity sweater, with thick yellow stripes and the word “Bumble” across the front, both stand out on the page for their uniqueness.
If you prefer a more simple silhouette, a cropped and embroidered logo shirt still stuns in bright marigold but the simple T-shirt provides a more muted color scheme. You can go for the classic dad hat in black, white or yellow, or opt for the trendy corduroy bucket hat in sunny hues.
“Though we’ll initially be focusing on apparel, we envision Bumble Shop will eventually become a space where people can purchase everything from date night kits, custom houseware items, and more,” Drummond said.
Bumble has already begun that venture with pronoun keychains, a playing card deck and its Question Game, which gives players topics to talk about to “push past small talk.” The capsule collection tends toward the more affordable side: $68-79 for the long sleeve shirts, $25-30 for the hats and tees, and $14-16 for everything else.
The capsule collection is indefinite but Aviator Nation’s collection is limited edition, lasting until the next quarter. Sizes range from XS-XXXXL.
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(Bob Daemmrich)
“You start with the signage,” he said. “You know exactly where the entrance is, and that’s for first responders too. We really want to make sure we keep up with visitor patterns. If they come in, they go through a system. Driver’s license, background check, which takes about a minute. We have a software system.”
AISD Director of Operations Matias Segura explains the overall school construction and what the entry vestibule looks like. (Rich Oppel)
The vestibule has two sets of locked doors. The exterior set has an audio-visual intercom, operated by a desk officer who has a view of visitor parking, the building approach and the vestibule. If allowed in, a visitor is buzzed through and then faces questioning and clearance by the desk officer. The visitor is given a card-reader pass. If a second person attempts to “trail in” behind another visitor, he is trapped in the vestibule until his status is determined. The second set of doors, into the main school building, remains locked and shut. It is open when students arrive in the morning.
Thus, the days of walking into the school, maybe waving at the principal’s executive assistant and strolling off to the cafeteria for lunch with your daughter are gone, a relic of a more bucolic time when “active shooters” were never imagined. But one must ask, what do we give up for greater safety?
Austinites remembered the Uvalde shooting victims in a vigil at the Texas Capitol in May. (Tony Fuentes)
Some critics argue that we are at risk of losing traditional values in the redesign of schools, courthouses, hospitals, churches and shopping centers. Writing in The Washington Post, architecture critic Philip Kennicott said the nation’s gun culture “threatens an essential precondition for democracy: its public space… Ideals of openness, flow, transparency and access will no longer be sustainable.”
Segura contemplates the question. At 41, he has held his job as AISD director of operations for four and a half years. Prior to that he was a consultant who led the team to build Austin’s new courthouse. His Austin and Texas roots are deep. He was born here, graduated from Bowie High, and went off to Lubbock to earn a degree in civil engineering from Texas Tech. He returned to secure an MBA at the University of Texas at Austin. He and his wife Joy Burson-Segura have two daughters who attend AISD schools. Segura said he and his operations team love AISD, care deeply about their work, and want citizens “to see us as partners.”
Back to what we lose in hardening the schools.
Segura says, “We think about students’ health. Having daylight, bringing light into a hardened facility, being able to access outdoor learning areas, (which is) hypercritical, especially in what we have learned in the pandemic.” Segura doesn’t like the idea of moats around schools (exotic, expensive) nor of classroom bomb shelters (what would teachers and students think about their looming presence?), efforts that are being tried elsewhere.
Healthcare workers receive the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine at the AISD Performing Arts Center in Mueller in 2021. (Jordan Vonderhaar)
AISD must juggle school security with the historic use of our schools for other purposes, such as voting, PTA-PTO meetings, community fairs, and, more recently, COVID-19 testing, vaccinations and food distribution. AISD does not want to end those uses, so the challenge is to design schools with separate rooms or places for those uses.
Clearly, Segura has thought about balancing conflicting equities. For him, it’s not all locked doors and blank brick or concrete walls. He stresses the importance of building a culture that includes shared responsibility of all school employees where, for example, a custodian could ask a stranger whether they have a visitor’s badge. All staffers should be well-trained in security measures, knowledgeable about new technology, and committed to working as a team to protect students, teachers and others. “We are working very, very hard on the culture,” he says. “Also, we need (financial) investment if we are going to move the needle.”
(Laura Figi)
Kennicott, the Washington Post critic, quotes the late Sen. Patrick Moynihan, a sociologist and New York Democrat, who said, “Architecture is inescapably a political art, and it reports faithfully for ages to come what the political values of a particular era were. Surely, ours must be openness and fearlessness in the face of those who hide in darkness.”
But that was in 2001. What messages will Austin’s new public schools convey to future generations about our 2021 political values?
“First and foremost, these are education spaces that belong to our community. Our objective is to create incredible learning experiences for our students and at the same time ensure that the students and staff are safe.” He said he wants people to view schools as “inspired,” places where they would want to send their children. “Great things are happening in that space,” and that teachers see a place where they want to work and where they feel safe.
Voters in AISD will decide Nov. 8 on a $2.44 billion bond package to provide “funding for improvements to enhance safety, centers on equity, benefits every campus, and addresses affordability,” according to AISD officials.
